What if Germany won the Battle of Britain? What if Moscow fell in 1942?You’re in charge. Anything can happen and history will never repeat itself in this classic WWII grand strategy game MAKING HISTORY II: The War of the World. Are you ready to battle for global dominance?

12 януари

A newly updated version of The Second World War is now available. The team lost a week or so to the holidays and there were a few sick days to overcome. Even with those obstacles, we executed a long list of improvements to the game. Again, most of our efforts have been AI related but we are continuing to add new content, events, feature improvements and of course bug fixes.

In this release we are introducing a new scenario called Last Days of Peace. It begins a few weeks before the Invasion of Poland. This allows players to skip the buildup years and get right into the war. Neither scenario is 100% complete so expect to see further balancing and content as we work towards release.

A new big addition to the AI has been to give it motivation to create and maintain contiguous fronts against enemies and potential threats. The implementation for this system took us through several variations. Initially the AI tended to become too narrowly focused on specific regions due to strength evaluations. Rather than spreading the units out along a front, we ended up with big stacks that led to gaps in front. Eventually the big stacks became pockets, often surrounded by Heavy Artillery that pounded them to extinction. It was kind of fun to see but not the gameplay we were looking for.

There were many factors to consider beside just having an enemy on the border. There is the opposing nation’s strength to consider but also the relationship status. We do not want Canada to think they need troops on the US border and vice versa. Some nations like the Soviet Union are so large that their defensive needs are always greater than what they have available. So the defense priority evaluations are especially challenging for the Soviet AI. They became our ultimate test case while we worked out the rough edges.

The AI is also considering potential invasion threats by sea or through bordering buffer states. Support Allies improvements allows the AI to better defend on Allied fronts and fill the fronts throughout their empire. Additionally, we’ve introduced the concept of Secondary Fronts so the AI will now try to create lines of reserves.

All the Major nations now have unique Unit Icon images. So you no longer will see a British soldier or Tank in a Japanese unit panel. We’ll soon have all the images in to match the unit you see on the map.

Thanks again to all the current users out there that take the time to post messages about issues and ideas. This process would be taking us even longer to get through without your support.

AI Changes:- Implemented AI to maintain Front against enemies and threats- Front AI will avoid creating gaps when evaluating regions to invade- Revised defensive AI to spread along contiguous fronts- AI accounts loss of defense in a region for moving troops in the support allies plan- No longer uses attack power from equipment units for offense planning- Better accounting for support allies in the return home plan- Support Allies AI has more defensive awareness- Added group splitting logic to Support Allies AI- Implemented AI to create secondary (reserve) fronts- Increased AI defense for coastal regions in other nation's sphere - Added Amphibious Assault penalty & Terrain modifiers for offense AI evaluations- End attack plans when desired power can not be deployed- Add pre-war land Regions to Sphere of Interest target checks- Great Powers and Superpowers can invade outside their sphere- Increased desired strength for overseas invasions- Fixed AI bug sending wrong group when splitting units for defensive - Modified desired strength estimate and definition of Obvious Targets- Regions that don't border the enemy but do border an Ally use less defense- Ignore equipment units when evaluating target planning- Expand definition of bordering an enemy to include unfriendly regions with troops- Include Buffer States when evaluating border defense- AI won't abandon coastal regions when reorganizing defenses

Game System Changes:- Neutrality Pacts no longer prevent defensive evaluations- Revised supply access rules to be based on region control- Troop Transports no longer contribute to Military Totals- Troop Transports no longer contribute to World Power Points

UI Changes:- Fixed fuel penalty displays on non-Naval Group panels

Editor Changes:- Can now edit sea regions for existing cities- Fixed adding city buildings when no city building of that type existed

15 декември 2017

The latest version of The Second World War is now live. There's a lot of new AI improvements, fixes and some new content additions. To begin with, we’ve about finished our comprehensive rewrite of the Land Offensive/Defensive AI. For the most part, the changes may not be very noticable. But over the course of a full game, players should experience an AI making wiser large and small scale decisions that will alter outcomes of battles and ultimately wars.

A major effort has gone into making the AI significantly more aware of it’s defensive needs both at home and abroad. They will also now attempt to gather reserves so front line collapses should not always lead to a total collapse. To get the AI to this level of functionality, new logic was required for how they move, split, reinforce unit groups and when to join a battle or consider it a lost cause.

We have a few more elements to complete in the Land Offensive/Defensive AI, including Improving Empire Defense, even better Allied support evaluations and ensuring the US is properly focused on defeating the Axis. The later issue encompasses bolder amphibious attacks and island to island campaigns.

The last update we introduced the new unit hitpoints. This had a fundamental impact on all systems related to the military. Some combat properties became overly powerful like Air to Sea attacks. These have been rebalanced along with other game areas like production times for all ships and the shipping capacity resource. We felt that although in reality a carrier can take a long time to build, reality does not always translate into entertaining. We’ll remain open minded about how best to balance the game and try to settle on a consensus position where possible.

Further adjustments to the overall game have been made to bring the systems in line with the new unit hitpoint mechanics. This is an area we intend to expand on, especially in the UI as we discover better ways to present new combat information. In general, if there something in the UI you feel needs attention, please let us know. Community feedback on this would be appreciated.

There are many new historical and some alternative history events in this update. We are close to finishing the required minimum events spec’d for release on the first scenario, but I keep adding to the wishlist and expect to go well beyond the minimum. The new Ottoman and Turkestan Revival for Turkey fall into that category. They are both in game now and we plan to later incorporate them into the Steam Achievement system. Other events are to be added for most nations that will function in a similar fashion.

As some may have noticed, we’ve shifted from an every week scheduled update to one every 2 weeks. This is primarily due to the type of changes we’ve been working on. AI improvements can take quite a bit of time and results often require additional refinement passes. A week does not give us enough time to properly implement, test and rebalance. Even with a second week, the changes in this update are so comprehensive that some issues are still lingering.

The next update is planned for after the December Holidays and New Year. We’ll be looking to refine and polish Air & Naval AI and begin checking off items from our large but manageable list of smaller tasks that will take us to release. And there’s still Tutorial, Encyclopedia, Achievements and a new scenario to finish. I’ll be starting a 1939 pre-Poland Invasion scenario over the holidays. If things go as planned, it might make the next update.

Game System Changes:- Changed rule on Military Access agreements to be Empire wide- Fixed bug so AI no longer considers landlocked Gulf of Ob a Coastal Region- Units stuck behind in peace deals can now get supplies to exit- Tanks no longer limited to moving 1 region a turn - Movement table now shows MAX movement for transportation level 0- Updated Movement Table- Added strict pathfinding rules to Convoy targets and Artillery units- Fixed calculations on Ranged attack hits to use Power instead of rolling to hit

Рецензии

“...a pinnacle of grand strategy, rippling with all the promise and depth inherent in the genre.”
4.5/5 – Adrenaline Vault, November 2011
“Whether you are a history nut or just love the challenge of strategy games, this game will challenge you.”
4.5/5 – Game Industry News, November 2011

Относно тази игра

MAKING HISTORY II: The War of the World gives players the power to take full control of your nation, their colonies, regions, cities, and military units during the time leading up to and during the Second World War. Transform your cities into centers of industry and technology by developing production and research facilities. At the region level, build large-scale defensive structures such as radar facilities and fortifications, develop transportation networks, and expand the resource production needed to fuel your economy. Supplying your industries with these vital resources is necessary to run the economy and maintain domestic stability. No two games of MHII will be the same. There are an unlimited number of ways to achieve your goals and alter the course of history.

Features:

Play any nation in the era of World War II on a map with over 1000 land & sea regions.

Hundreds of unique land, sea, & air units representing both major & minor powers of the era .

Intelligent AI instigates, reacts and adapts to the changing game dynamics generating action on the homefront and abroad.

Research an array of weapon systems & tactical improvements; repair, reinforce and upgrade your military forces.